Last week, Oliver Callan - writing in his newspaper column - chose to criticise Alan Hughes' choice of proposal destinations - that being the Ireland AM studio.
In response to this, Hughes said "This is coming from the guy who came out on a Saturday night chat show? If that's not attention seeking, I don't know what is. He obviously needs to sell tickets for his tour but if that's the type of bitter old queen we have in Ireland, then I don't know. I pity his boyfriend. Oliver needs a reality check." Hughes also pointed out that he "wanted to show other gay people that if we're able to propose live on TV, maybe then they’ll have the courage to come out to their mam or dad or their friends."
COLUMN @olivercallan: Hughes is a silly sausage https://t.co/13RPEn7LrL pic.twitter.com/SFnznWwjHh
— Irish Sun (@IrishSunOnline) November 12, 2015
With the ball firmly batted back to the mimic, he chose to write this in his Irish Sun column today: "The presenter, an anti-bulling campaigner, labelled me a 'bitter old queen' after I made a few comments about his antics. You can imagine the hysterics if a straight man called Hughes a bitter old queen. Since satire rattles cosseted public figures, I get plenty of coarse reactions when I make my opinions public and I well accepted and expected this one. I did find it odd however to e called 'old' by someone who is more than 20 years my senior and looks like he slept in formaldyhyde."
There's more: "He's saying this gesture was to promote good mental health in the gay community. Strange, it also came across as an act of self-promotion from the TV3 weatherman who shows up at more free PR events than a salmon canape."
There's not much left to say, apart from DING DING DING DING - ROUND THREE.